AN VISUAL CRYPTOGRAPHY

Abstract:

Security has become an inseparable issue as information technology is ruling the world
now. Cryptography is the study of mathematical techniques related aspects of
Information Security such as confidentiality, data security, entity authentication and data
origin authentication, but it is not the only means of providing information security,
rather one of the techniques. Visual cryptography is a new technique which provides
information security which uses simple algorithm unlike the complex, computationally
intensive algorithms used in other techniques like traditional cryptography. This
technique allows Visual information (pictures, text, etc) to be encrypted in such a way
that their decryption can be performed by the human visual system, without any complex
cryptographic algorithms. This technique encrypts a secret image into shares such that
stacking a sufficient number of shares reveals the secret image. Shares are usually
presented in transparencies. In this paper we provide an overview of the emerging Visual
Cryptography(vc) and related security research work done in this area.

Keywords: Contrast, Shares, Pixels, Secret sharing, stacking

Introduction

Even with the remarkable advance of computer technology, using a computer to decrypt
secrets is infeasible in some situations. For example, a security guard checks the badge of
an employee or a secret agent recovers an urgent secret at some place where no electronic
devices are applied. In these situations the human visual system is one of the most
convenient and reliable tools to do checking and secret recovery. Visual cryptography
(VC), proposed by Naor and Shamir [1], is a method for protecting image-based secrets
that has a computation-free decryption process. In the (2, 2) VC scheme each secret
image is divided into two shares such that no information can be reconstructed from any
single share. Each share is printed in transparencies. The decryption process is performed
by stacking the two shares and the secret image can be visualized by naked eye without
any complex cryptographic computations. In the above basic VC scheme each pixel ‘p’
of the secret image is encrypted into a pair of sub pixels in each of the two shares. If ‘p’
is white, one of the two columns under the white pixel in Fig. 1 is selected. If p is black,
one of the two columns under the black pixel is selected. each case, the selection is
performed randomly such that each column has 50% probability to be chosen. Then, the
first two pairs of sub pixels in the selected column are assigned to share 1 and share 2,
respectively. Since, in each share, p isencrypted into a black–white or white–whitepair of
sub pixels, an individual share gives no clue about the secret image. By stacking the two
shares as shown in the last row of Fig. 1, if ‘p’ is white it always outputs one black and
one white sub pixel, irrespective of which column of the sub pixel pairs is chosen during
encryption. If ‘p’ is black, it outputs two black sub pixels. Hence there is a contrast loss
in the reconstructed image. However the decrypted image is visible to naked eye since
human visual system averages their individual black–white combinations. The important
parameters of this scheme are:
a) Pixel expansion ‘m’, which refers to the number of pixels in a share used to encrypt a
pixel of the secret image. This implies loss of resolution in the reconstructed image.
b) Contrast ‘_’, which is the relative difference between black and white pixels in the
reconstructed image. This implies the quality of the reconstructed image. Generally,
smaller the value of m will reduce the loss in resolution and greater value of ‘_’ will
increase the quality of the reconstructed image. As mentioned above if ‘m’ is decreased,
the quality of the reconstructed image will be increased but security will be a problem. So
research is focused on two paths:
1. To have good quality reconstructed image
2. To increase security with minimum pixel expansion.This paper provides an overview
of this emerging technique in three sections. Section I gives details about the Basic model
of visual cryptography. Section II summarizes the following research works in visual
cryptography and its extensions.
1. Visual cryptography for general access structures..
2. Visual cryptography for gray level images.
3. Recursive Threshold visual cryptography.
4. Extended visual cryptography for natural images.
5. Halftone visual cryptography.
6. Visual cryptography for color images. .
7. Progressive color visual cryptography.
8. Regional incrementing visual cryptography (RIVC).
9. Segment based visual cryptography. Section III provides details about research works
regarding security issues in visual Cryptography.
 1. Basic Model

The basic model of visual cryptography proposed by Naor and Shamir [1] accepts binary
image ‘I’ as secret image, which is divided into ‘n’ number of shares. Each pixel of
image ‘I’ is represented by ‘m’ sub pixels in each of the ‘n’ shared images. The resulting
structure of each shared image is described by Boolean matrix ‘S’ Where S=[Sij] an [n x
m] matrix Sij=1 if the jth sub pixel in the ith share is black Sij=0 if the jth sub pixel in the
ith share is\ white When the shares are stacked together secret image can be seen but the
size is\ increased by ‘m’ times. The grey level of each pixel in the reconstructed image is
proportional to the hamming weight H(V) of the OR – ed Vector ‘V’, where vector ‘V’ is
the stacked sub pixels for each original pixel. A solution of the ‘n’ out of ‘n’ visual
secretsharing consists of two collections of n x mBoolean Matrices C0 and C1 .To share a
white pixel, randomly choose one of the matrices from C0, and to share a black pixel,
randomly choose one of the matrices from C1.The following conditions are considered
for the construction of the matrices:
1. For any ‘S’ in C0, the OR-ed ‘V’ of ‘n’ rows satisfies H(V) _n-_m.
2. For any ‘S’ in C1, the OR-ed ‘V’ of any ‘n’ rows satisfies H(V) _n. By stacking fewer
than ‘n’ shares, even an infinitely powerful cryptanalyst cannot gain any advantage in
deciding whether the shared pixel was white or black. Let us describe the construction of
matrix for (n, n) visual cryptography for n=3. C0= {all the matrices obtained by
permuting the columns complement of [BI]} C1= {all the matrices obtained by
permuting the columns of [BI]}
Where,
B is the matrix of order n x (n-2) which contains only ones
I is the identity matrix of order n x n
The basic model was then extended to (k, n) threshold cryptography where any ‘k’ or
more shares will reveal the secret image. The construction of ‘k’ out of ‘n’ visual secret
sharing is similar to the basic model with one difference. That is in basic model the
threshold value is n where as here it is k which is the subset of n.

2. Visual Cryptography schemes

Visual Cryptography schemes

In (k,n) Basic model any ‘k’ shares will decode the secret image which reduces security
level.To overcome this issue the basic model is extended to general access structures by
G. Ateniese, C. Blundo, A. De Santis, and D. R. Stinson [2],where an access structure is a
specification of all qualified and forbidden subsets of ‘n’ shares . Any subset of ‘k’ or
more qualified shares can decrypt the secret image but no information can be obtained by
stacking lesser number of qualified shares or by stacking disqualified shares.
Construction o fk out of n threshold visual cryptography scheme for general access
structure is better with respect to pixel expansion than researches basically handle only
binary images, [5] establishes the extended visual cryptography scheme suitable for
natural images.

Visual cryptography for gray level images

Previous efforts in visual cryptography were restricted to binary images which is
insufficient in real time applications. Chang- Cousin, Wen-HsiangTsai [3] proposed
visual cryptography for gray level images by dithering techniques. Instead of using gray
sub pixels directly to constructed shares, a dithering technique is used to convert gray
level images into approximate binary images. Then existing visual cryptography
schemes for binary images are applied to accomplish the work of creating shares. The
effect of this scheme is still satisfactory in the aspects of increase in relative size and
decoded image quality, even when the number of gray levels in the original image still
reaches 256.

Recursive Threshold visual cryptography

The (k,n) visual cryptography explained in section I needs ‘k’ shares to reconstruct the
secret image. Each share consists at most [1/k] bits of secrets. This approach suffers
from inefficiency in terms of number of bits of secret conveyed per bit of shares.
Recursive threshold visual cryptography proposed by Abhishek Parakh and Subhash Kak
[4] eliminates this problem by hiding of smaller secrets in shares of larger secrets with
secret sizes doubling at every step. When Recursive threshold visual cryptography is used
in network application,

Extended visual cryptography for natural images

All of the VC methods suffer from a severe limitation, which hinders the objectives of
VC. The limitation lies in the fact that all shares are inherently random patterns carrying
no visual information, raising them suspicion of data encryption. Mizuho NAKAJIMA
and Yasushi YAMAGUCHI [5] proposed Extended visual cryptography for natural
images constructs meaningful binary images as shares. This will reduce the cryptanalysts
to suspect secrets from an individual shares. While the previous researches basically
handle only binary images, [5] establishes the extended visual cryptography scheme
suitable for natural images.

Halftone Visual Cryptography

The meaningful shares generated in Extended visual cryptography proposed by Mizuho

NAKAJIMA and Yasushi YAMAGUCHI [5] was of poor quality which again increases
the suspicion of data encryption. Zhi Zhou, Gonzalo R. Arce, and Giovanni Di Crescenzo
proposed halftone visual cryptography which increases the quality of the meaningful
shares. In halftone visual cryptography a secret binary pixel ‘P’ is encoded into an array
of Q1 x Q2 (‘m’ in basic model) sub pixels, referred to as halftone cell, in each of the ‘n’
shares. By using halftone cells with an appropriate size, visually pleasing halftone shares
can be obtained. Also maintains contrast and security.

Visual cryptography for color images

The researches in visual cryptography leads to the degradation in the quality of the
decoded binary images, which makes it unsuitable for protection of color image .F.
Liu,C.K. Wu X.J. Lin proposed a new approach on visual cryptography for colored
images. They proposed three approaches as follows:
1. The first approach to realize color VCS is to print the colors in the secret image on the
shares directly similar to basic model. It uses larger pixel expansion which reduces the
quality of the decoded color image.
2. The second approach converts a color image into black and white images on the three
color channels (red, green, blue or equivalently cyan, magenta, yellow), respectively, and
then apply the black and white VCS to each of the color channels. This results in
decrease of pixel expansion but reduces the quality of the image due to halftone process.
3. The third approach utilizes the binary representation of the color of a pixel and
encrypts the secret image at the bit-level.This results in better quality but requires devices
for decryption.

Progressive visual cryptography

In traditional Color Visual Cryptography, loss of contrast makes VCS practical only
when quality is not an issue, which is quite rare. The application of digital halftoning
techniques results in some downgrading of the original image quality due to its inherently
lossy nature and it is not possible to recover the original image from its halftone version.
Duo Jin Wei-Qi Ya n,Mohan S, Kankanhalli[6] proposed a new encoding method that
enables us to transform gray-scale and color images into monochrome ones without loss
of any information. Incorporating this new encoding scheme into visual cryptography
techniquen allows perfect recovery of the secret grayscale or color image.

Regional incrementing Visual Cryptography

VC schemes mentioned above usually process the content of an image as a single secret
i.e all of the pixels in the secret image are shared using a single encoding rule.This type
of sharing policy reveals either the entire image or nothing, and hence limits them secrets
in an image to have the same secrecy property. Ran-Zan Wang [7] proposed
RegionIncrementing Visual cryptography for sharing visual secrets in multiple secrecy
level in a single image. The ‘n’ level RIVC scheme, an image S is designated to multiple
regions associated with secret levels, and encoded to shares with the following features:
(a) Each share cannot obtain any of the secrets in S,
(b) Any t(2<t<n+1) shares can be used to reveal (t-1) levels of secrets
(c) the number and locations of not-yetrevealed secrets are unknown to users,
(d) all secrets in S can be disclosed when all of the (n+1) shares are available, 2.9.
Segment based visual cryptography The VC Methods mentioned above is based on pixels
in the input image. The disadvantage of pixel based visual cryptography is loss in
contrast of the reconstructed image which is directlyn proportional to pixel expansion
‘m’. A New approach proposed by Bernd Borchert [8] was based on segments which
takes pixels as the smallest unit to be encrypted .The advantage of segment based over
pixel is that it may be easier for the human eye to recognize the symbols, The messages
consists of numbers can be encoded by segment based visual cryptography using seven
segment display.

3.Security issues
Horng et al. proposed that cheating is possible in (k, n) VC when k is smaller than n.
There are two types of cheaters in VC. One is a malicious participant (MP) who is also a
legitimate participant, namely MP € nP(Qualified participant) and the other is a malicious
outsider(MO), where MP € P. A cheating process against a VCS consists of the following
two phases:
1. Fake share construction phase: the cheater generates the fake shares;
2. Image reconstruction phase: the fake image appears on the stacking of genuine shares
and fake shares. In order to cheat successfully, honest participants who present their
shares for recovering the secret image should not be able to distinguish fake shares from
genuine shares. A reconstructed image is perfect black if the sub pixels associated to a
black pixel of the secret image are all black. Most proposed VC schemes have the
property of perfect blackness. An example of the
 Fig: The Cheating process

Some of common ways how MO and MP cheats visual cryptography are

1. Cheating a VC by an MP
2. Cheating a VC by an MO
3. Cheating an EVCS by an MP.
4. Cheating Prevention Algorithm

Cheating a VC by an MP

A qualified participant can also be a cheater, where the participant uses his original share
to create a fake share. By doing so, he will try to cheat the other genuine participants
because the fake share generated will be indistinguishable from the original shares and
also the decoded output image will be different from the original secret image. The
process of cheating is shown fig

Fig: Cheating VC by an MP

Cheating a VC by an MO

A disqualified participant called as MO willncreate fake shares by using some random

images as input and will try to decode the original image. The MO will try to create fake
shares of different sizes because the size of the original share may vary. The process is
 Fig :Cheating VC by an MO

Cheating an EVCS by an MP

The Qualified participant creates the fake share from the genuine share by interchanging
the black pixels by the white pixels which leads to less contrast of the reconstructed
image. The less contrast in reconstructed image will be hard to see the image. The fake
image in the stacking of the fake shares has enough contrast against the background since
the fake image is recovered in perfect blackness. The process shown fig

Fig:Cheating an EVCS by an MP
Cheating Prevention Algorithm

The Cheating method explained in section 3.1 is prevented by Robust cheatingprevention

algorithm proposed by chih ming hu and wen guey tzeng [9].The cheating Prevention
method has following features:
1) It does not rely on the help of an on-line TA. Since VC emphasizes on easy decryption
with human eyes only, we should not have a TA to verify validity of shares.
2) The increase to pixel expansion shouldb be as small as possible.
3) Each participant verifies the shares of other participants. This is somewhat necessary
because each participant is a potential cheater.
4) The verification image of each participant is different and confidential. It spreads over
the whole region of the share. We have shown that this is necessary for avoiding the
described attacks.
5) The contrast of the secret image in the stacking of shares is not reduced significantly in
order to keep the quality of VC.
6) A cheat-preventing method should be applicable to any VCS.

Conclusion

In order to hide the secrecy we go for expansion and increasing of the number of shares,
but this affects the resolution. Therefore an optimum number of shares are required to
hide the secrecy. At the same time security is also an important issue. Hence research in
VC is towards maintaining the contrast at the same time maintaining the security.